The Woodbine Podcast returns with a new episode featuring John Clark, author of The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (2013) and Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community (2019).

We discuss why anarchist movements have trailed religious communities, or have relied on disasters, to build deep communal forms of life. We talk about some neglected thinkers and histories, from Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) to the Sarvodaya movement. We hear about John's long-term research project on a "dialectical social ecology", as well as his experiences as a teacher in both university and autonomous settings.

John P. Clark is a philosopher, activist, writer, and educator. He lives in New Orleans, where his family has been for thirteen generations. He is Director of La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Loyola University, where he taught for 44 years. His books include Max Stirner’s Egoism (1976), The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin (1977), The Anarchist Moment (1984), The Tragedy of Common Sense (2016), and he is at work on Awakening Earth Community, a dialectical social ecology. In recent years he has worked with such activist groups as No Bayou Bridge, No New Leases, 350 NOLA, and Earth First. He does educational and organizational work with La Terre Institute, both in New Orleans and at Bayou La Terre Woodland Center, an 88-acre site on Bayou La Terre, near Dedeaux, MS in the coastal forest on the Gulf of Mexico. For many years he was active in the alternative education and cooperative movements, and he is a member of the Education and Research Workers’ Industrial Union 620 of the Industrial Workers of the World.

LINKS:

John Clark's Writings: https://loyno.academia.edu/JohnClark

Dialectical Social Ecology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1298373847207629/

La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology: https://www.laterreinstitute.org/

READINGS:

--"Élisée Reclus: The Making of a Communard" - John P. Clark, 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20220222160826/https://roarmag.org/essays/elisee-reclus-paris-commune/

--"Living Our Lives: The Communal Basis of Social Transformation" - John Clark, 2020: https://www.academia.edu/50699717/Living_Our_Lives_The_Communal_Basis_of_Social_Transformation

--"What is eco-anarchism?" - John Clark, 2020: https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/v03sc-02.pdf

For this week's episode we're joined by Phil Neel and Kang Kang to discuss Phil's recent book Hellworld: The Human Species and the Planetary Factory.

We talk about optimism and partisanship, literacy and revolutionary subjectivity, and whether to fear or embrace the apocalyptic nihilism of our time.

SUGGESTED READINGS:

--"Theory of the Party" - Phil A. Neel, 2025: https://illwill.com/theory-of-the-party

--"Forest and Factory" Phil A. Neel & Nick Chavez, 2023: https://www.endnotes.org.uk/palabre/forest-and-factory

--"Garbage time of history" - Alexander Boyd, 2024: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2024/08/06/garbage-time-of-history/

--"Heart" - Shuang Xuetao, 2023: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/09/heart-fiction-shuang-xuetao

Phil A. Neel is a communist geographer and the author of Hinterland and Hellworld. His most recent work can be found in his blog, The Planetary Factory.

Kang Kang is a writer, translator, and artist working on a dissertation about revolutionary pessimism in ethnic Chinese literature.

LINKS:

https://philneel.substack.com/

https://kangkang.fyi/

https://www.rosachicago.com/

For this week's podcast we're joined by George Katsiaficas, author of the classic texts The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968 (1987) and The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life (1997), as well as the more recent collections Gen Z Makes History (2025) and Eros and Revolution (2024).

We discuss his idea of the eros effect and what we can learn from following global waves of uprisings. We think together about where both radical consciousness and self-organization comes from, as well as the danger of a Thanatos effect, where we see a contagion of confusion, depression, and nihilism.

LINKS:

--Gen Z Makes History: https://www.eroseffect.com/gen-z-makes-history

--George Katsiaficas's Website: https://www.eroseffect.com/

George Katsiaficas is a social theorist who is known for his many writings on social movements, 1968, and Asian uprisings. A longtime activist for peace and justice, he was a student of Herbert Marcuse. Together with Kathleen Cleaver, he coedited Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party. He was a professor of humanities and sociology at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston for more than three decades. Katsiaficas is a militant researcher, who lives amongst and collaborates with the people he writes about and sees his research as advancing global activism, not simply describing or analyzing it.

For this week's podcast we're joined by Swiss writer Hans Widmer, author of the 1983 anarchist classic bolo'bolo, to discuss his new book Cities for a Single Planet: A Model for the Ecological Transformation of the Earth, which was recently published in English by Autonomedia.

Andreas, Eric, and Matt speak with Hans about the utopian tradition, social reproduction, and revolutionary planning. We cover many of his hot takes on family abolition and individualism, what Disneyland and Las Vegas get right, and whether we will really need bikes and green space.

LINKS:

--Cities For a Single Planet: https://autonomedia.org/product/cities-for-a-single-planet-a-model-for-the-ecological-transformation-of-the-earth-by-hans-widmer-with-p-antoniadis-m-baumgartner-and-d-spuhler/

--New Alliance: https://newalliance.earth/

--o500: https://o500.org/

--New Start Switzerland: https://www.neustartschweiz.ch/

Hans Widmer is a philologist, novelist, and urban activist, and author of bolo'bolo (pseudonym P.M.), and "The Power of Neighborhood" and the Commons (2014).

For this week's podcast we're joined by one of the participants in the CrimethInc. project for a wide-ranging conversation. We discuss CrimethInc's longevity across the last 30 years, and the unique historical perspective that affords the project. We talk about its roots in the punk and DIY countercultures, and its gradual evolution into an anarchist think tank. We reflect on CrimethInc's various approaches to public outreach, from publishing to speaking tours to convergences, as well as its recent experiences with deplatforming. We end by discussing the growing popularity of both democratic and authoritarian forms of socialism as competing responses to the current political crisis.

READINGS:

--To Change Everything - 2015: https://crimethinc.com/tce

--Resisting ICE in Chicago - 2025: https://crimethinc.com/2025/11/20/reflections-on-resisting-ice-in-chicago-the-view-from-broadview

--Anarchists at the No Kings Rallies - 2025: https://crimethinc.com/2025/10/20/anarchists-at-the-no-kings-rallies-reports-from-around-the-country

CrimethInc. is a rebel alliance — a secret society pledged to the propagation of crimethink. It is a think tank producing ideas and action, a sphinx posing questions fatal to the superstitions of our age. CrimethInc. is a banner for anonymous collective action. It is not a membership organization, but a mouthpiece for longings that extend throughout the population at large. CrimethInc. is an international network of aspiring revolutionaries extending from Kansas to Kuala Lumpur. We strive to reinvent our lives and our world according to the principles of self-determination and mutual aid.

For this week's podcast we look at Bernie Sanders' recently published book Fight Oligarchy, discussed alongside the mayoral victory of Zohran Mamdani. Sam Law joins Anton, Kristina, and Matt to reflect on Bernie's legacy as a politician, communicator, educator, tactician, and democratic socialist. We talk about his commitment to holding office as an independent, and his use of the "oligarchy" framework to evade both identity politics and partisanship. We discuss the generation gaps in the history of socialism in the United States, as well as our movement's capacity to produce convincing, charismatic leadership. We end by comparing the political trajectories of Bernie and Zohran, and analyze what a successful Mamdani mayorship might look like.

Sam Law is an Austin-based organizer and anthropologist studying urban autonomy and grassroots organizing in Mexico City. They have published work on Latin American social movements in Political And Legal Anthropology Review, South Atlantic Quarterly, and NACLA.

READINGS:

--"White House weighs stepped up domestic travel and speeches to improve Trump’s standing on the economy" - Alayna Treene, 2025: https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/politics/trump-economy-white-house-strategy

--"The ‘Sewer Socialism’ of Zohran Mamdani" - E. J. Dionne Jr., 2025: https://archive.is/IBWOs

--"Germany’s Social Democrats Failed Miserably" - Loren Balhorn, 2024: https://jacobin.com/2024/12/germany-spd-scholz-left-elections

--"Municipal Socialism in the United States, 1900–1940" - James Siodla and Tate Twinam, 2023: https://ssha2023.ssha.org/uploads/230741

For this week's podcast we're joined by DeeDee Halleck. We start with the 1988 conference she helped organize, "The History and Consequences of Anticommunism", which took place at Harvard University. We hear about her experiments within community media -- from super 8 and 16mm film, to video, to public access television, to satellite, to early internet video. She talks about going from college dropout to tenured professor, and reflects on the evolution of the education system in the US since the 50s. We discuss how she balanced the demands of being a media advocate, an artist, and a mother. We hear about her time living in rural artist communities, as well as her collaborations with artists ranging from Shirley Clarke, Richard Serra, Nancy Holt, and Robert Frank.

READINGS:

--"The Experience of Citizens' Television In the United States: Public Access/Public Sphere" - DeeDee Halleck, 1992: http://documentaryisneverneutral.com/words/ddhcittv.html

--"The Censoring of Burn!" - DeeDee Halleck, 2003: https://electronicbookreview.com/publications/the-censoring-of-burn/

--"Video Activism as a Way of Life. An Interview with DeeDee Halleck" - Lora Taub-Pervizpour, 2011: https://ebrary.net/82041/sociology/video_activism_life_interview_with_deedee_halleck

DeeDee Halleck is a media activist and filmmaker. She has been a leading figure in the media democracy movement for more than four decades, working to promote alternative and independent film and media production and distribution as a means of promoting social change. In collaboration with a number of known artists, including Joan Jonas, Jean DuPuy, David Tudor, Liza Bear, Richard Serra, Nancy Holt, David Behrman, Roberta Nieman, the Videofreex, Mary Frank, Reverend Billy, Morag Benepe, Ed Sanders, and Tuli Kupferberg among others, Halleck has produced and directed numerous documentary films that explore the intersection of media, power, and social justice. Apart from her work as a filmmaker, Halleck has been an educator and mentor to countless aspiring media makers, sharing her knowledge and experience through workshops, lectures, and other educational programs. In 1981, Halleck co-founded and organized Paper Tiger Television, a collective producing a weekly cable series. This project changed the way communities utilized the resource of public access. By contrast to network television, Paper Tiger inspired artists, local filmmakers, and activists to invent quick and easy, down and dirty content specifically designed for low budget local channels. Paper Tiger has created over 400 half-hour programs, which have been shown locally and at film festivals, media conferences, and art venues around the world. Halleck is Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication at the University of California at San Diego.

For this week's podcast we're joined by John Holloway to talk about his most recent book Hope in Hopeless Times, which concludes a trilogy began with Change the World Without Taking Power (2002), and followed by Crack Capitalism (2010).

Kristina and Matt speak with John about the role that revolutionary hope has to play in pushing back against the self-destructiveness of the capitalist hydra. We discuss richness vs. wealth, and overflowing vs. containment in trying to manage people's righteous rage at the system's injustices. We think about identitarianism and struggle, and look at the Zapatista and Kurdish freedom movement's lived attempts at reclaiming the world.

READINGS:

--"​Hope in hopeless times: an interview with John Holloway" - Cihad Hammy, 2022: https://roarmag.org/essays/hope-hopeless-times-holloway-interview/

--"A Note on Hope and Crisis" (2014): https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038514544491

--"Hope Depends On Our Capacity to Create a Different Way of Living" - John Holloway - 2012: https://files.libcom.org/files/OT15.pdf

John Holloway has published widely on Marxist theory, on the Zapatista movement and on the new forms of anti-capitalist struggle. His book Change the World without Taking Power has been translated into eleven languages and has stirred an international debate, and Crack Capitalism took the argument further, suggesting that the only way in which we can think of revolution today is as the creation, expansion, multiplication, and confluence of cracks in capitalist domination. He is currently Professor of Sociology in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico.

Kristina is an anthropology PhD student who researches mutual aid networks in Brooklyn. She works as a coordinator and community engagement director in housing and immigration.

For this week's podcast we talk about the bestselling book Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson, described by the publisher as a "paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life."

We're joined by Eric and Max to discuss the context of the book's release, in the aftermath of both Project 2025 and Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, as well as the mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani. We talk about the book's ambivalent relationship to both power and conflict, and its idealism in resolving the contradictions between the market and the state. We think through the horizons of a potential left utopianism, and the political programs presently on offer to us, from Bernie Sanders' democratic socialism, Xi Jinping's CCP, and Andreas Malm's climate Leninism.

READINGS:

--"A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems" - Derek Thompson, 2022: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/scarcity-crisis-college-housing-health-care/621221/

--"Addressing NYC’s Housing Crisis" - Brad Lander, 2025: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b2052b12487fd3fa17f00a6/t/67c9104eaeb4d1348ee66894/1741230159290/State+of+Emergency+-+Addressing+NYC%E2%80%99s+Housing+Crisis.pdf

--"What’s the Matter with Abundance?" - Malcolm Harris, 2025: https://thebaffler.com/latest/whats-the-matter-with-abundance-harris

--"How to Blow Up a Planet" - Trevor Jackson, 2025: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/09/25/how-to-blow-up-a-planet-abundance-klein-thompson/

Eric is an infrastructure consultant specializing in regulatory compliance and financial management for transportation and broadband projects, and is currently supporting one of the nation’s largest passenger rail projects. He advocates for taxation reform to enable greater autonomy in the financing of public capital projects.

Max is a libcom tankie who studies neoliberalism and monetary regimes.

We're joined on the podcast by Anthony Dest and Nikola García Johnson to discuss Anthony's new book, Dissident Peace: Autonomous Struggles and the State in Colombia, recently published by Stanford University Press.

We talk about their research and organizing work in Colombia and Chile, thinking through the contested meanings of autonomy and peace in movements there. We hear about the specific struggles of Afro-Colombian and Mapuche communities, and how recent uprisings have informed their strategies for self-governance.

LINKS:

--Dissident Peace: https://www.sup.org/books/anthropology/dissident-peace

--"The coca enclosure: Autonomy against accumulation in Colombia" - Anthony Dest, 2021: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105166

--Nikola García Johnson: https://nikolagarcia.com/

--"Revisiting the Concept of Revolution" - Marcello Tarí & Nikola García, 2022: https://polarjournal.org/2022/03/31/revisiting-the-concept-of-revolution/

Anthony Dest is Assistant Professor and Gussenhoven Fellow in Geography and Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work is based on long-standing collaborations with Black and Indigenous social movements in Colombia. He is on the executive council of the International Peace Research Association, and his writings have been featured at NACLA (North American Congress in Latin America), and in Spanish at Pueblos en Camino.

Nikola García Johnson is a cultural anthropologist, writer, and educator based in Chile, whose work explores Mapuche autonomy, urban indigeneity, and everyday experiments in democracy. They're a postdoctoral fellow at Universidad de los Lagos, developing their book Emergent Citizenships on the everyday politics of autonomy across Mapuche urban and rural worlds.